Elevator for barrels



(No Model.)

0. A. FRY. ELEVATOR FOR BAHRBLS.

No. 561,782. Patented June l 1896.

UNITED STATES PATENT CHARLES A. FRY, OF NEIV YORK, N. Y., ASSIGNOR TO THE LINK-BELT ENGINEERING COMPANY, OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

ELEVATOR FOR BARRELS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 561,782, dated June 9, 1896.

Application filed January 26, 1892. $erial No. 419,294. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, CHARLES A. FRY, a subject of the Queen of Great Britain, residing at New York, in the county and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Elevators for Barrels and other Articles, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to elevators used for handling packages of various sizes and shapes,and is particularly applicable to those handling round packages, such as barrels, kegs, &c.

The object of my improvements is the automatic discharge of the packages at desired points along the elevator; and myinvention consists in the various features of construction and arrangement of parts, substantially as hereinafter more particularly pointed out.

The ordinary method of discharging packages at intermediate floors has been some arrangement of the elevator-arms whereby their carryingaces could be turned into positions sufficiently inclined to roll or slide the packages off, or else the carriers were suspended pivotally from the chains and arranged to carry the load up over the head and deliver it onto intermeshing fingers or skids at some point on the descending side of the elevator. There are a number of inconveniences connected with either of these methods, and my device enables me to overcome them and to use rigid and more simply and cheaply constructed carrying arms or cradles.

To enable those skilled in the art to which my improvements relate to understand and practice the same, I will now proceed to describe my invention more fully, referring to the accompanying drawings, which form part of this specification, and in which similar numbers and letters of reference designate similar parts throughout both views.

Figure 1 is a front elevation,and Fig. 2 a side elevation, of a barrel-elevator employing my improvements.

1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are barrels in different positions relative to the cradles 6, to which latter are attached the carrying-arms a for elevating and b for lowering barrels.

7 are chains or cables of the elevator, running in the direction indicated by the arrows in Fig. 2 and banded about wheels 8, which are carried by shafts 9 and 10. Shaft 9 may be extended at either end to receive suitable driving wheels or pulleys. (Not shown.) Shaft 10 is preferably journaled in take-ups 11, so that the chains or cables can be kept taut. To keep the chains still more rigid, I generally run them in guides at the sides. (Not shown in the drawings.)

At the backs of the barrels I use guide strips 12 and at the fronts the casin g or framework 13, preventing any possibility of the barrels rolling off of their carriers in passing up or down. Framework 13 is provided with gates 14 at each floor, arranged to be opened for barrels to pass in or out and closed to keep them on the arms and permit them to pass to other floors.

3 15 are loading and 16 are unloading skids or fingers.

17, 18, 19, and 20 are different floors at which barrels are loaded on or discharged.

21 are cam-faced pushers or bumpers for discharging ascending barrels, and 22 are straight-faced bumpers for discharging descending barrels. Bumpers 21 are pivotally suspended from shafts in such a manner as to permit a limited rotary motion relative to the shafts, but beyond these limits they are under the control of the shafts and their levers 24. Bumpers 22 are carried by shafts 25, which are controlled by levers 26. Levers 2i and 26 may be held in position by any convenient arrangement-as, for instance, the quadrants 27 and pins 28 shown with levers 2%.

In illustration of the operation of my device I have shown barrel 1 at floor 18 rolling down skids 15 ready to be received on arms a of cradle 6, gate 14 being held open in a suitable manner. At floor 20 I have shown bumpers 21 in proper position for barrels to strike them and be pushed off at that floor if not discharged at a lower floor. I do not use 9 a lever with this pair of bumpers, as they are always left in operative position to prevent carrying barrels over the head. It will be seen that the barrel first strikes where the radii of the bumpers are shortest, and as the carrier ascends the bumpers, pivoted loosely on their shaft,swin g out in rolling contactwith the barrel until the longest radii are brought into play. At floor 19 Ihave shown barrel 2 in the middle of the discharging operation. It is in contact with the middle of the camfaces and has been pushed far enough over to bring its center of gravity beyond the high points in the arms a, and the ascending action of the carriers, combined with the pushing action of the bumpers and the tendency to roll down the inclines of the arms, will deliver the barrels on the skids 16 without violence. On the other side of the elevator barrel 3 at floor 20 is about to be rolled onto the passing cradle. Barrel 4 is passing fioorli), gate 14 at that point being closed. At floor 18 barrel 5 has just struck bumpers 22 and will thereby be pushed beyond the high points in arms I) and rolled down the inclines onto the discharging-skids 16. .At fioor 17 the bumpers 22 are permanently in position to discharge anything that comes down that far, and gate 1% at that point is not latched down, but is left loose at the bottom, so that it can be pushed open by a descending barrel in case the bumpers on an upper floor have for any reason not been thrown into position quickly enough. These elevators are frequently used for delivering differentlymarked barrels at different fioors, both ascending and descending, and it is therefore necessary to provide for throwing bumpers into and out of position readily and taking care of any barrels which may get beyond the fioor for which they were intended.

I first made my bumpers or pushers with straight inclined surfaces against which the barrels would be crowded by the ascending arms until forced off, sometimes relieving the shock of the concussion with the bumpers by placing springs behind them. As there was danger, however, of barrels being occasionally injured by cramping or pinching and scraping if slightly misplaced on the carriers, I changed the form of the bumpers, supplying them with curved faces and suspending them pivotally with their faces diagonal to the line of ascent of the barrels. One effect of this is to avoid the sliding or scraping action on the barrels in discharging them, for the bumpers swing out in rolling contact with them and roll them off of the carriers.

The diagonal position of the pivoted bumpers minimizes the concussion with the ascending barrels and avoids the pinching action, while furnishing a certain amount of movement and pressure transverse to the line of ascent to roll them off. To increase the degree of transverse movement, I pivot the curved faces eccentrically or make them camlike, arranging the shorter radius above and the longer radius below, about as shown in the drawings, the result being that a rapid transverse pushing effect is developed, which enables a barrel to clear itself quickly from the carriers, thus avoiding the danger of be ing lifted far enough above the level of the floor to drop off violently. To avoid the possibility of barrels just glancing against the diagonal faces of the bumpers and failing to swing them out far enough to start the rolling, I generally roughen the contact-faces or form them with serrated surfaces to prevent the slipping tendency and compel the rolling contact.

In adjusting the bumpers for operation their shaft should be turned into such a position that they will engage with an ascending barrel gently and swing out toward the line of ascent of the center of the barrel far enough to start it rolling off of the cradle, and yet they must not come near enough to the cradle to be in danger of catching on it. This leads me, in cases where a cradle is employed reaching from one chain to the other, to make the cradle as narrow as the circumstances will permit, and as a further assistance in carrying the load centrally and yet discharging it freely I provide the carrying side of the cradle with arms-as, for instance, a in the drawings which are somewhat hollowed out over the middle and bent downward toward the front or discharging side to form an incline along which the barrels readily roll to the fioor or receiving-skids after being pushed far enough over to carry the center of gravity beyond the high point or bend in the arms. Of course the bumpers and arms are arranged out of line with each other, so as not to interfere.

There all the barrels are to be of substan tially the same length, I sometimes employ separate carrying arms attached to each chain, engaging the barrels at or near their ends. In such cases the bumpers can be arranged to swing farther out into the path of the ascending barrels, if desired, without danger of catching on the arms, as they will swing between them.

To arrange for lowering barrels as well as elevating them, I fit the cradles with two sets of arms on each, placed opposite, about as shown in the drawings, and to discharge the descending barrels I provide pushers with inclined or diagonal faces, which are placed in such a position that the barrels are rolled over onto the inclined portions of the arms, the location of the pushers being so arranged as to effect a discharge before the outer points of the arms have gone below the level of the floor or receiving n skids. The discharge-bumpers for the descending barrels may be formed separately, or the rear sides of the bumpers for ascending barrels may be fitted for the purpose and the shaft arranged to be turned in one direction or the other, as the case may require; but I prefer to form them separately, as it is sometimes desired to discharge both ascending and descending barrels on the same floor, in which case both sets of bumpers would be needed at the same time.

\Vhere it is desired to regulate the dis- IIO charge at the different floors from any other floor, I employ a system of ropes or levers connected with the bumper-shafts in a suitable manner for manipulating them.

here the elevator is to be used for handling other shapes of packages than barrels, I generally make the tops of the carrying-arms fiat instead of hollowed out and modify the shape and proportions of the bumpers to suit the special Work in hand.

When I apply my improvements to'singlestrand elevators, I use a Wide chain to carry the barrel-arms,because of the leverage which a barrel would have against a narrow chain if slightly misplaced in loading on. In such cases of course the chain would be at the backs instead of the ends of the barrels and the bumpers would project from the rear on both sides of the chain.

what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is Y 1. In package-elevators, the combination with package-carriers, of swinging bumpers or push ers pivota-lly suspended With their contact-faces diagonal to the line of ascent of the packages and adapted to be engaged by the aseendin g packages, whereby said pack.- ages are discharged from the carriers, substantially as set forth.

2. In package-elevators, the combination. with package-carriers, of pivotally-suspended swinging bumpers or pushers provided with cam-shaped contact-faces arranged diagonal to the line of ascent of the packages and adapted to be engaged by the ascending packages, whereby said packages are discharged from the carriers, substantially as set forth.

3. Two endless chains or cables driven by suitable Wheels about which they are handed, and carrying-arms formed with discharginginclines and borne by said chains, in combination with bumpers having faces diagonal to the direction of motion and partially in the path of packages borne by the said arms, substantially for the purpose described.

CHARLES A. FRY. Witnesses LEoPoLn A. (Jim/mono, H. I. KIELY, FRANKLIN A. STEMMLER. 

